Diary of a Referee: 'The Chief Scrutinized Our Nearly Nude Bodies with an Ice-Cold Gaze'

I went to the cellar, dusted off the scales I had avoided for several years and glanced at the readout: 99.2kg. Throughout the previous eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had evolved from being a umpire who was heavy and out of shape to being slender and well trained. It had taken time, packed with patience, difficult choices and priorities. But it was also the start of a change that gradually meant anxiety, tension and discomfort around the assessments that the authorities had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a competent referee, it was also about prioritising diet, looking like a premier referee, that the body mass and body fat were appropriate, otherwise you faced being reprimanded, being allocated fewer games and landing in the sidelines.

When the officiating body was replaced during the summer of 2010, Pierluigi Collina brought in a series of reforms. During the first year, there was an strong concentration on physical condition, body mass assessments and fat percentage, and mandatory vision tests. Eyesight examinations might appear as a given practice, but it had not been before. At the sessions they not only tested fundamental aspects like being able to read small text at a particular length, but also specialized examinations adapted for professional football referees.

Some officials were identified as unable to distinguish certain hues. Another turned out to be lacking vision in one eye and was obliged to retire. At least that's what the rumours suggested, but everyone was unsure – because regarding the results of the optical assessment, no information was shared in larger groups. For me, the optical check was a confidence boost. It demonstrated professionalism, meticulousness and a desire to improve.

Regarding weighing assessments and fat percentage, however, I mostly felt revulsion, irritation and embarrassment. It wasn't the assessments that were the difficulty, but the method of implementation.

The initial occasion I was obliged to experience the degrading process was in the autumn of 2010 at our annual course. We were in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the first morning, the referees were separated into three teams of about 15. When my team had stepped into the large, cold conference room where we were to gather, the supervisors instructed us to undress to our underclothes. We looked at each other, but everyone remained silent or attempted to object.

We carefully shed our attire. The previous night, we had received clear instructions not to have any nourishment in the morning but to be as devoid as we could when we were to undergo the test. It was about registering the lowest mass as possible, and having as minimal body fat as possible. And to look like a official should according to the standard.

There we stood in a long row, in just our intimate apparel. We were Europe's best referees, elite athletes, role models, grown-ups, caregivers, assertive characters with high principles … but nobody spoke. We scarcely glanced at each other, our eyes darted a bit anxiously while we were summoned as duos. There the boss examined us from completely with an ice-cold look. Quiet and watchful. We mounted the balance one by one. I sucked in my belly, straightened my back and held my breath as if it would have an effect. One of the trainers loudly announced: "Eriksson, Sweden, 96.2 kilos." I sensed how the boss stopped, observed me and inspected my almost bare body. I reflected that this lacks respect. I'm an grown person and forced to stand here and be inspected and critiqued.

I stepped off the weighing machine and it seemed like I was in a daze. The identical trainer came forward with a kind of pliers, a instrument resembling a lie detector that he commenced pressing me with on assorted regions of the body. The pinching instrument, as the instrument was called, was cold and I jumped a little every time it pressed against me.

The coach pressed, pulled, pressed, measured, rechecked, mumbled something inaudible, squeezed once more and squeezed my dermis and adipose tissue. After each measurement area, he declared the number of millimetres he could assess.

I had no understanding what the numbers signified, if it was positive or negative. It lasted approximately a minute. An assistant entered the values into a document, and when all readings had been determined, the file rapidly computed my overall body fat. My value was declared, for all to hear: "Eriksson, eighteen point seven percent."

Why did I not, or any other person, speak up?

Why couldn't we stand up and state what everyone thought: that it was humiliating. If I had voiced my concerns I would have concurrently signed my end of my officiating path. If I had doubted or resisted the methods that Collina had enforced then I would not have received any matches, I'm convinced of that.

Certainly, I also wanted to become more athletic, be lighter and achieve my objective, to become a elite arbiter. It was clear you shouldn't be above the ideal weight, equally obvious you ought to be fit – and sure, maybe the complete roster of officials required a professionalisation. But it was wrong to try to reach that level through a embarrassing mass assessment and an agenda where the key objective was to reduce mass and reduce your fat percentage.

Our twice-yearly trainings after that maintained the same structure. Mass measurement, body fat assessment, endurance assessments, laws of the game examinations, evaluation of rulings, team activities and then at the end a summary was provided. On a report, we all got information about our fitness statistics – pointers indicating if we were going in the correct path (down) or incorrect path (up).

Body fat levels were categorised into five tiers. An acceptable outcome was if you {belong